Mary Jo Pehl
Mary Jo Pehl (pronounced "Peel") is an American actress and writer. She is best know for her portrayal of the sinister Mrs. Pearl Forrester, mother of Dr. Clayton Forrester on Mystery Science Theater 3000. She also served as one of the show's writers. Biography Early life Mary Jo was born on February 27, 1960 in Circle Pines, Minnesota. She grew up with four siblings and, initially, pursued a career in nursing. Eventually she decided she had made a "major bad career choice" (she hated the sight of blood) and pursued a career in comedy.http://www.mst3kinfo.com/thebrains/index.html She would go on to appear on VH-1's Stand-Up Spotlight and A&E's Comedy on the Road. ''Mystery Science Theater 3000'' Mary Jo joined the writing staff of MST3K in 1992. For her, the show matched up well with her interest in bad movies "the ineptitude of the people who make them".http://www.mst3kinfo.com/thebrains/index.html She made several appearances as various guest characters before debuting as Pearl Forrester in [[MST3K 607 - Bloodlust!|''MST3K'' 607 - Bloodlust!]]. The following season, after the departure of Frank Conniff as TV's Frank, Pearl became a regular, starting with [[MST3K 701T - Night of the Blood Beast|the "Turkey Day" edition of Experiment #701 - Night of the Blood Beast]]. When the show returned for Season 8 on The Sci-Fi Channel, Pearl was promoted to lead "Mad", a role Mary Jo continued until the end of the original run of the show. At 2016's San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Mary Jo would reprise her role of Pearl Forrester for an appearance on the [[Bring Back MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 Kickstarter|revived Mystery Science Theater 3000]]. It was also announced that she would contribute to the writing of several episodes. Mary Jo ultimately appeared as Pearl in 3 episodes of Season 11. Post-''MST3K'' Following the end of MST3K, Mary Jo joined several other former cast and crew in the production of the web series The Adventures of Edward the Less in 2001 for the Sci-Fi Channel's web site. In 2007, Mary Jo joined Joel Hodgson, Josh Weinstein, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Conniff in the riffing project Cinematic Titanic, appearing in all twelve of the project's DVD releases and touring with the group through 2014. Mary Jo published her first book, Employee of the Month and Other Big Deals in 2011. In fall of 2014, Pehl appeared in the DVD-music video comedy short The Frank along with other MST3K members. In 2015, she released Songs in the Key of B Movies, an EP of songs inspired by various films from the MST3K canon. Mary Jo was signed to write a comic book series, Jailbait, which was subsequently published in 2015 by Blue Water Comics. Ostensibly the writer of the comic, Mary Jo felt that much of her original script was abandoned and she disavows the project today. In 2016, Pehl co-created the proposed half-hour comedy series Renfest, which also features Trace Beaulieu and Dave (Gruber) Allen. In 2018, Mary Jo Pehl began producing and starring in the webseries Ruth Larson Lives!, a parody of lifestyle vlogs. In 2019, America Obscurious appeared. The project featured Mary Jo alongside Kevin Murphy and Trace Beaulieu.http://americaobscurious.com/ Appearances Regular roles *Magic Voice (1992-1996) *Pearl Forrester (1994-1999, 2017) Guest appearances *Amazon Mom - Hercules *Jan in the Pan - The Brain That Wouldn't Die, San Francisco International, Racket Girls *White Trash Lady - Beginning of the End *Nelson Family Matriarch - Santa Claus *Member of The Power Steves - Girls Town *Cokie Roberts (voice) - Zombie Nightmare *Tourist - Racket Girls *Mary Jo of Deep 12 - The Sword and the Dragon *Casino announcer (voice) - Red Zone Cuba *Head Party-goer - The Beast of Yucca Flats *Barb - The Amazing Transparent Man *Jody the Nanite - The Leech Woman *Shelli the Nanite - The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, The Pumaman Personal quotes * "The atmosphere in the writers’ room was cacophonous. There was no pausing to say, “Let me add to that joke.” And the typist had to transcribe everything that he or she could catch. Sometimes we’d be stopped on a frame for a good 10, 15 minutes because there were so many jokes." * "That considerably reduced our movie pool. And they were also more attentive when it came to reviewing the scripts. They went through them for standards and practices. Somebody objected to our using the word putz." * "Around 2001, I went to a movie theater, and two people in front of me were talking. And the person in front of them turned around and asked them to shut up, and said, “This isn’t Mystery Science Theater, you know.” That was the first taste I got of the show’s lasting effect." * "The idea of riffing, of mocking, of commenting on things is very prevalent nowadays. Obviously, it was happening before Mystery Science Theater codified it. But it just seems to have pervaded a lot of the way comedy is done now—it’s its own genre now. The one thing that I do find a little disheartening—and I don’t know if we started the ball rolling on this—is that nothing is sacred anymore." External links * Official website * WIRED Magazine|"Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Definitive Oral History of a TV Masterpiece" References Pehl, Mary Jo Pehl, Mary Jo Category:Crew who played multiple roles Category:Voice-over artists Category:Riffers Category:Comedians Category:Actors who portrayed members of The Mads Category:MST3K guest actors Category:RiffTrax